


I Don't Wanna Let You Go Til' You See The Light

by KamiChameleon



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Connor is a cheerleader and Evan is very gay, I'll add more tags later, M/M, alternate universe - cheerleaders, idk. Im just tired and i wrote this and liked it and i might continue it., plus relationship and chara and fandom tags, so is jared, theyre just gay okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 19:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17269883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KamiChameleon/pseuds/KamiChameleon
Summary: Evan Hansen had spent the first seventeen years of his life in Indiana with his drunk dad and his school of roughly eight people, all of whom were probably cousins, and all of whom had probably boned.Now, Evan Hansen is living with his mom, and trying to figure out why he was told she was dead for twelve years.It doesn't help that he's also got a cheerleader and a computer geek on his mind all the time.





	I Don't Wanna Let You Go Til' You See The Light

Straight people didn't get to have any fun. That was probably why they were so bitter and dickish all the time.

Evan was sitting and sweating on overfilled football bleachers, with his best (and only, because he had just transferred) friend, Jared, who was absolutely not straight. Evan was absolutely, in all senses of the word, straight.

He had transferred to New Jersey to live with his mom after he found out that his mom was actually alive. He had spent the first seventeen years of his life in Indiana, with a drunk dad, and a school of roughly 8 people, all of whom were probably cousins, and all of whom had probably boned before. Evan felt a bit like a scientist, observing such a limited gene pool. Evan liked science.

Evan did not introduce new genes to the pool. Not because that wasn't a thing he would end up doing, because he was straight, so he liked women, which was the only way to be. Evan didn't introduce new genes because of two reasons. Reason one, gross. Reason two, none of the 5 girls seemed interested. Evan wasn't interested in them either though, so it worked out.

Evan did not tell his father that the girls at school didn't like him because of his big nose and jewfro, because he knew those were things David Hansen hated about his son. David Hansen did not especially like Jewish people, because he was a hick in southern Indiana. David Hansen did not like gay people, or people who stumbled over their words, or people who cried when they got yelled at, or people who didn't bring home a new girl every week.

David Hansen did not like Evan. 

If it had been an option, Evan would have gone to live with his mother. If he had known that she wasn't dead, if he hadn't lived with David's constant threat that maybe they should start a family cemetery.

It had been an option, Evan reminded himself. He was in New Jersey, where people fuck their cousins less often.

Jared was from New Jersey. Jared was not straight. Jared was proudly jewish. Jared had hard opinions on things that adults didn't want him to have hard opinions on. Jared was everything David hated about youth, and Evan thought he was the coolest guy ever. 

Other than the gay part, because gay people weren't allowed.

Jared told Evan that he was pretty sure Evan was gay. Evan didn't say anything, because he didn't want to offend Jared. Instead Evan hyperventilated, but quietly, which was a skill he had learned when David had been especially drunk.

David drunk.

David had been drinking and he had- 

Jared was looking at him. Evan looked at the console in Jared's room. 

“What's that?” He pointed, and Jared immediately launched into a rant about how he “COULDN'T BELIEVE” that Evan didn't know what a Wii was. Jared asked if he played Xbox at all. Evan didn't know what an Xbox was. He said yes. Jared smiled.

Jared was nice when he smiled.

And then Jared had said, “I know how to prove you're gay.”

Evan didn't really want to go through with this.

But here he was, sweating on bleachers that were probably burning through his pants, with Jared and a dozen other guys who didn't seem to care much about the game. Suddenly they were supposed to care about the game though, because Jared pulled Evan forward and told him to look.

The football players were leaving the field.

The cheerleaders were coming onto the field.

Oh.

They started doing a routine, and everybody around him were shouting out the names of different girls. Evan didn't know the names of any of the girls, but he thought they all looked okay. He did like girls, he was sure, just not Indiana girls. Or more specifically, not Indiana girls from North Valley High School. These girls however, looked nice. He couldn't see very well, because he was too anxious to tell Heid- Mom that he needed glasses. Heidi was Mom. Dad was David.

One of the girls looked very nice. She had long brown hair that would have reached her shoulders if it hadn't been in a ponytail. She had long, toned legs that looked amazing in her uniform. He looked around. None of the others were looking at her. Jared was looking at him looking at her, which was weird. He looked at Jared. Jared looked at another girl. 

The cheerleaders left. Several of the guys did too. Jared dragged Evan up. 

“So, who did you see?”

“The, um, the girl who di-did all those, uh, the girl who did all those cartwheels was uh, cute?” His voice cracked on the word cute. Jared scrunched up his nose and looked at him weird but then he shifted and laughed at him.

“Dude, we're seventeen, your voice still cracks?” His voice cracked on the word cracks. He froze. Evan stared at him. He stared at Evan. They both burst into laughter, and Evan hadn't laughed this long in ages.

Somebody walked up to them.

It was a tall guy in a hoodie. He looked sweaty. Jared smirked when he saw him.

“Hello Connor!”

Connor scowled at Jared. Jared beamed at him.

Evan stared at Connor. Jared stared at Evan staring at Connor. Connor scowled at Jared who was staring at Evan who was staring at Connor. He then looked at Evan. He didn't scowl. In fact, he kind of smiled.

“Hi. Connor Murphy.”

“Oh, hello, I'm Ev- Evan um…”

What was his last name.

His last name wasn't Hansen anymore.

What was his last name.

Connor looked at him.

“Evan! That's a um, good name.”

Jared gaped a bit in the corner of Evan's vision. Evan managed to smile at Connor.

“Shouldn't you be, um, playing football?” Evan asked, because Connor was sweaty and maybe he was wearing his football jersey under his hoodie. That wouldn't make any sense. Evan didn't think about it.

Connor stood for a second, processing his words, and then burst out laughing. It was a good laugh. Evan liked it. Not in a gay way though, just in the same way he liked how Jared's glasses always rode up a little bit when he scrunched up his face because he was concentrating on something, and then a couple minutes later Jared would realize his glasses had been pushed up, and he would weird faces he thought Evan didn't see to make them fall again.

It wasn't in a gay way.

Evan didn't know what Connor was laughing about.

“Yeah, sure bud. See you around?” Connor asked, still a bit giggly. Evan nodded, and Connor jogged off.

“Why did he laugh about the football team?”

Jared stared at him. “He's Connor Murphy.”

Evan stared back. “So he told me.”

“Connor started gymnastics when he was four years old. He's been doing them since. That Connor Murphy holds the school record for most back handsprings done in immediate succession.”

Evan got a thought, but he ignored it. “How many did he do?”

“Forty five.”

Evan blanched for a second.

“Connor is head cheerleader. Only guy on the team. Also, the only person who ever does cartwheels during routines.”

Evan sank.

“Out of more than fifteen cute girls, you still managed to fall for the guy! Think of the connotations, Ev.”

When he was little, David called him Ev. David was happy then, and he didn't drink. He had Heidi, Evan remembered. Mom. Heidi was Mom. Mom kept him sane. But then Mom had “died” (Evan still didn't know what that meant) and David got bad. Really bad. Bad enough to-

Evan felt his stomach turn.

“I have to go.”

Jared called out something about how its not a big deal that Evan likes guys, but Evan was gone. Evan could run fast.

He got to Heidi's House. Moms House. Mom wanted him to call it home, which he did, around her. Not in his head. He wasn't sure where home was.

He got to the room Heidi had set up for him. He opened the closet, and he climbed behind his drawers, and he sat and rocked. He sat and rocked for some time. He didn't know how long. It was nice, not worrying about wasted time. He had time now. Time to live and breathe and be happy.

And yet he couldn't shake the feeling that this was just a small break, that the universe was trying to lull him into a false sense of security. Jokes on the universe, Evan had never felt secure, not even in the early years where David was patient, and Heidi was there, and he was innocent. He climbed trees and planted flowers with David. Evan liked plants, as a kid. He would probably like plants now. He decided to get a plant.

When he sat in the dark, with nothing but his brain, he could think.

He thought about his thoughts. He organized them. He paired them with other thoughts that felt similar. His therapist had taught him this.

He did not like being called Ev because David bad called him Ev, and then David had-

Evan could not think of that.

He did like Jared smiling at him, and the feeling he got reminded him of eating tacos with Heidi. Heidi still made good tacos. They felt familiar. Jared felt familiar too, even if they had only met a couple weeks ago.

He thought of Connors’ laugh. It was hard to think about what that felt like. It felt like Jared smiling at him, but not familiar. Connor was new. He was different. But his laugh made Evan feel like Jared was smiling at him, which felt like tacos with Heidi. They were all good. Evan sorted that out. 

Evan forgot his other thoughts, because those three seemed more important. He got out from the closet.  
He laid down.

He thought about how he hadn't thought about Jared thinking he liked boys. A silly thought. But it didn't seem so bad now.

Evan fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Big yeehaw for finishing this. Its. Someting huh! I really hope you enjoyed, and make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next chapter, when I update this. Make sure to LIKE THIS VIDEO and RING THE NOTIFICATION BELL. Title is from Take Me Home Tonight by Eddie Money. Also, this is unbeta'd! Feel free to yell at me for any mistakes.


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